


Bane of the Doctor - Part 6: The Doctor, Bent

by RodimusDoctor



Series: Bane of the Doctor [7]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Multiple Doctors (Doctor Who), Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 13:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1552457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RodimusDoctor/pseuds/RodimusDoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 10th Doctor comes close to snapping after a particularly nasty fear-induced nightmare. Meanwhile, in the Delirium Archive, the 8th Doctor successfully returns the 11th Doctor to his senses. They compare notes with River Song and Clara Oswald, and try to plan their next move.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bane of the Doctor - Part 6: The Doctor, Bent

He was back on Midnight, trapped in the shuttle with the creature that had possessed Skye. She stood before him, smiling in triumph.

Behind him were the other passengers: Didi, Jethro and his parents, the hostess... He couldn’t see them, but he could feel their presence.

“And now, Doctor,” Skye said.

“And now, Doctor,” the Doctor repeated.

“You’re going to die,” Skye said.

“You’re going to die,” the Doctor repeated, and hands grabbed him all over. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t move or speak except when the creature in Skye did.

“Why so glum?” asked Jethro, the surly teenage Merlin look-alike. “You love it when things go bad.”

“You act like you care,” said Didi, “but you’re just in it for the rush, aren’t you?”

“We’re all just playthings,” said Biff, Jethro’s muscular father. “Part of your game, barely worthy of attention when the danger’s past.”

“You’re no better,” said Skye.

“You’re no better,” said the Doctor.

“...than the monsters you fight.”

“...than the monsters you fight.”

“Out with him!” Skye cried as they reached the back of the shuttle.

“Out with him,” said the Doctor.

“Alonz-zee!” said Jethro, Didi and Biff, and they threw the Doctor out into the extonic light...

“Welcome, Doctor.”

The Doctor landed face-first in the dirt, but he still recognized the dry monotone of an ood speech sphere. He looked up to see Ood Sigma standing over him, and a circle of Ood surrounding them both.

“Your song is ending soon, Doctor,” Sigma told him, and his eyes glowed red.

“But there’s still so much I can do!” the Doctor pleaded.

“Perhaps you should not do more,” Sigma said, and he stood aside to reveal an open space between the ood behind him. Beyond the circle was mist, and in that mist a form appeared.

Humanoid on top, blocky from the waist down. It seemed to have only one functional arm, and a glowing eye in its forehead.

“Oh, no,” the Doctor said, watching as the half-machine thing slid forward between the ood and into the circle.

“We meet again, Time Lord,” said Davros, bringing himself to a stop beside Ood Sigma. “We did not get to finish when last we met.”

“The Doctor’s soul will be revealed,” Sigma said helpfully.

“No...” the Doctor said. “No! You don’t need to do this!”

“Yes we do,” Ood Sigma said. “And you need to see it. Proceed, Davros.”

“With pleasure,” Davros replied. He touched a button on his control panel and the world around the Doctor shifted into a column of screens. Each screen displayed a different point from his life, and a consequence of his interference.

That poor coward whose one act of bravery cost him his life during the Ice Warrior invasion on the Moon.

The murderer-turned-idiot/saint run down by the Master at the conclusion of that Mind of Evil incident.

Adric, whose death was a scar on both the Doctor’s hearts that no regeneration could heal.

Ace, who’d seen where a life with the Doctor would lead and got out while the getting was good.

All the victims of the Family of Blood, dead because he had come.

All the British and Russian soldiers who fell so that he could have his showdown with Fenrick.

Oscar Botcherby, the sweet prince of Seville, gutted by Shockeye while his second incarnation watched.

Martha Jones, Sara Jane Smith and Captain Jack Harkness, who had threatened to destroy the Dalek mothership and even the Earth itself, because they thought that’s what he would have done.

The Last Great Time War...

Donna Noble’s mind...

Peri...

The Doctor screamed.

 

“Almost there,” I say, watching with no small amount of satisfaction.

 

The screaming stopped. The two Doctors lowered their hands, nodded, and stood.

“Doctors?” River asked.

“I’m all right,” the Doctor replied, unconsciously adjusting his bowtie. “My other self here,” he indicated his eighth incarnation, “helped me to come to terms with the memories you inadvertently triggered.”

“That was... scary,” Clara said. “What was it, Doctor? What could do that to you?”

“A fear-inducing gas,” the other Doctor replied, “created by one Doctor Crane.”

“Who’s that?” River asked. “I’ve never...”

“A psychotic, brilliant criminal who calls himself the Scarecrow,” Clara said. “What?” she asked, when River and both Doctors stared at her. “I watch the news. He’s from across the pond in Gotham City, locked up in some asylum.”

“Manson must have broken him out,” River said.

“And used him to create the gas he used on me,” the 11th Doctor added.

“Obviously,” said the 8th Doctor.

“How are you involved in this?” River asked the 8th Doctor.

“Might we have some introductions first?” he replied. “I know myself, of course...”

“He shouldn’t know me,” River looked pointedly at her Doctor. “Not yet. Not for...”

“He won’t,” the 11th Doctor replied. “I’m only just starting to regain those memories now. Timey-wimey thing. Doctor,” he addressed his younger self, “meet River Song, your future partner in both crime and matrimony.”

“Oh my,” the 8th Doctor said.

“And this...” he turned to find Clara stepping forward.

“Clara Oswald. Pleased to meet you,” she said, taking the other Doctor’s hand and shaking it. His hand was limp in hers for a moment, his eyes still on River.

“Sorry, bit distracted,” he said, giving Clara his attention and shaking her hand firmly. “That last one was a lot to take in. How do you do? I’m the Doctor.”

“Yes, I know,” Clara replied.

“Clara, you said?” the Doctor frowned. “Yes, I do know you.”

“I... really don’t think you do,” Clara replied, giving him an odd look.

“I had another face, then,” the Doctor went on. “And when you said Clara...”

“A mystery for another time, don’t you think?” River said impatiently. “You were going to tell us how you came to be here.”

“Of course,” the 8th Doctor turned so he was facing all three of them. “My arrival here is easy to explain. I was following the signal.”

“What signal?” River asked.

“Well... the signal,” the 8th Doctor said. “Didn’t you...?”

“They didn’t share our little mind-meld,” the 11th Doctor reminded him. “Obviously. You’d better start at the beginning. And I wouldn’t mind getting it again in a more linear form.”

“Of course,” the 8th Doctor said. “It started shortly after I arrived on Chamble...”

 

The 8th Doctor told them how he’d woken up on Chamble near Casino Aqua with missing time in his mind and a terror in his hearts he could not account for. Then, after barely surviving a tsunami and a flood-damaged Tardis, he went to Macrofern for an interior remodeling. Jules Vernian, with lots of wood paneling and an old-fashioned feel. And easy access to the Eye of Harmony, although in retrospect that had been a mistake...

“Skip a bit, Doctor,” his other self suggested.

On his way to Macrofirm he’d discovered a signal with a very strange message. The Tardis hadn’t been able to trace it back to its source, though it had narrowed the location to a few thousand parsecs. The message, on the other hand, proved to be the key.

“It was extremely clever,” the Doctor told them. “Took me a couple of hours to work it out, using Jules Verne’s The Time Machine as a cypher. And I was distracted. I had the remains of a clone of the Master in a strongbox, and it broke out and played havoc with the console. I made an emergency landing on Earth, got shot, regenerated and woke up in a morgue. Which was a first.”

“Yes, yes, I remember that bit,” the 11th Doctor said. “We thought we were half human back then.”

“We are half-human!” the 8th Doctor said.

“No you’re not,” River put in. “And we’re not having that debate again. Please continue.”

“Well, once I got underway again,” the younger and apparently not half-human Doctor went on, “I finally cracked the code and made my way here.”

“Why here?” Clara asked. Then her eyes widened. “Wait... the message you decoded led you here? To this place?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said. “Isn’t that why you lot are here?”

“I came looking for an anomaly,” the 11th Doctor said. “That would be you,” he pointed at River.

“No it wouldn’t!” she replied. “I waited a long time for you to turn up, but there’s nothing about my holomatter projector or even my vortex manipulator that would create an anomalous effect.”

“But we traced the anomaly right to you,” Clara said.

“Did we?” said the Doctor, whipping out his screwdriver and scanning the area once more. “No, Clara, no we did not!” He stepped around the display case he’d found the fez in while the other three watched.

“Please be careful,” the 8th Doctor said. “If it’s an anomaly, we should really work out the relative dimensions before...”

“My Doctor knows what he’s doing,” River said.

The 11th Doctor continued to step forward, screwdriver outstretched. Then he paused to check the readings, said, “Oh.”

And vanished.

“Or not,” River said. 

“Doctor!” cried Clara.

“I did warn myself,” the 8th Doctor put in.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have been enjoying this series, please take a look at some of my other work! You can find my ebook The Five Demons You Meet In Hell here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/367849 Check it out! You'll be glad you did. Hey, would I lie to you?
> 
> Bane of the Doctor continues in Part VII: Two Doctors, One Mind


End file.
